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‘Luddite’ Teens

nytimes.com

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Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#151

Post by LegitShady »

soulofmischief wrote: post #106
sdwr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't read the article, but I wish I had friends who made listening to the wind an activity growing up. There's a lot of performance any direction you take, surrendering time to the elements is a lovely little angle.

Fear of coming across as performative has overall hindered my ability to coexist within certain subcultures. I wish I cared less about this and I admire people who manage to find cultural unity through performance.

at some point you have to realize the overwhelming majority of people you're worried about being judged by aren't people whose opinions you'd care about if they were offered to you, and that being an authentic you is more important than the judgement of strangers.

A lot of people's lives could be way better if they internalized this.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#152

Post by 411111111111111 »

legohead wrote: post #56
Archipelagia wrote: post #40

It reminded me of one of pg's old essays – http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html . Highly recommended. On a personal note, it's also something that worries me for the day when I'll finally have my own children. I wouldn't want them exposed to modern cyber-addictions from young age, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to protect them, when I can expect that all their peers will be on whatever social app's gonna be p…

It's very difficult. I was lucky to have access to the internet in the late 80s and have watched it grow, mature, evolve. I know how quickly things can change, and I don't want my kids to miss out or be left behind. But at the same time, the dangers that exist today didn't exist even in the 90s. My biggest fear then was receiving an email virus. Now, Social Media alone is enough to make a parent take a step back and…

> Social Media alone is enough to make a parent take a step back and wonder what is the right time to introduce your children to the internet.

I can't help but wonder whenever I hear this message: do you know, really?

After taking with them a little, it often comes down to pretty ... innocuous things in my opinion. Sure, there's always peer pressure and they'll be constantly judged etc, but that's just a an exaggerated baseline of what teenagers always had. Surely troublesome and not good for their mental health, but they'll probably get over it eventually.

From my perspective, the biggest danger that current social media created is that the creep factor is gone for stalking. To make a pretty regular example, let's say there is a teenage girl that's feeling lonely. She starts a live stream to talk with people. Some people show up and are super positive! They even give her some stickers (which are literally just money on TikTok she can check out...). Isn't it great to be valued? I don't think I need to write the rest of the story, as it's quiet obvious where the grooming eventually leads.

It's especially hard to swallow because the money she could make is astronomically higher then she'd ever have a chance of making anywhere else. Good luck explaining that...

Seriously, the original social media was so frickin tame. It's so much more twisted now that money is involved and everything is moving towards 1 person with an audience vs "your group of friends" before.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#153

Post by freemanofthewan »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #124
LarryMullins wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did they wear? Sandals or something? I tried birkenstock sandals before but they only lasted about a year before they became too gross to wear. $150 doc martens seem like good value to me. They last about 5-8 years at the rate I wear through them, or about $20-30 per year. Certainly more efficient than any sneakers.

They make doc martens in China now. I imagine the 8-year old who made your shoes was a master craftsman, however...they start them young. The original factory still makes boots, they aren't quite as "cool" though. The people at your Communist reading group might not even heard of the brand.

Care to enlighten us as to who is now operating the original factory producing less “cool” boots? RedWing has started outsourcing to Cambodia and the quality has dropped significantly. I have been searching for a replacement. White’s are all I have found.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#154

Post by armenarmen »

wara23arish wrote: post #77
LarryMullins wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did they wear? Sandals or something? I tried birkenstock sandals before but they only lasted about a year before they became too gross to wear. $150 doc martens seem like good value to me. They last about 5-8 years at the rate I wear through them, or about $20-30 per year. Certainly more efficient than any sneakers.

Maybe Im missing out but Ive never felt the need to spend so much on shoes. There’s countless of alternatives to boots/shows that aren’t name-brand Doc Martens with that aesthetic. Personally, I just shop at the clearance sections or sales (ive never seen doc martens there ime) I always feel like a fool if i drop money on something expensive. From reading On The Road, I just remember that they were always broke, drun…

Ever hear of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory? Terry Pratchett in the Discworld novel Men at Arms has the Vimes say: "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#155

Post by dpflan »

ancientworldnow wrote: post #132
LarryMullins wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a selection bias here; the ones who are performative are more likely to cross paths with a NYTimes journalist than the ones who aren't. People who keep it low key don't often rise to the notice of others.

Look up their parents. It's not a coincidence they crossed path with NY Times reporters looking to profile them. Nepotism teens doesn't have the same ring though.

Nepoteenism.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#156

Post by spritefs »

IMO the real problem here isn't the technology itself, but cultivating an unhealthy relationship with it and not using it maturely

The most interesting thing in this article to me is the classist accusation. I wonder if this luddite trend is just some sort of counter signaling, where if rich kids decide to not use smartphones it's provocative (and they get flip phones from parents on a whim), but if poor kids don't it's because they're poor

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#157

Post by eikenberry »

Archipelagia wrote: post #40

It reminded me of one of pg's old essays – http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html . Highly recommended. On a personal note, it's also something that worries me for the day when I'll finally have my own children. I wouldn't want them exposed to modern cyber-addictions from young age, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to protect them, when I can expect that all their peers will be on whatever social app's gonna be p…

IMO they need to be exposed at a young age but need guidance to make sense of it... much like most things in the world. If you shelter them from it they won't learn how to deal with it and will be forced to figure it out themselves. As a parent I think it is my responsibility to expose them to as many of these sorts of things as possible and teach them to deal with them in a healthy way.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#158

Post by goatlover »

LarryMullins wrote: post #95
ravenstine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, yes, because a lot of people don't really know what being pretentious or a hipster actually means. The passage of time has lead to both terms being misunderstood and simultaneously conflated. In order for someone to actually be pretentious, there has to be a pretense. Being purposefully non-mainstream doesn't make someone pretentious as much as a more normal individual would like to believe. Hipsters aren'…

I've got a theory that the TV show Firefly is appreciated today because it got cancelled before it was popular; they quit when they were ahead and before popularity ruined it. But most Firefly fans seem to hate my theory.

How does something being popular ruin its quality? The reason people diss hipsters is because they’re reacting to what other people enjoy instead of just liking something for its own sake.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#159

Post by alphabettsy »

browningstreet wrote: post #38

My college aged son refuses a phone. Uni gave him an iPad, he rarely uses it -- he has his laptop. He has no social. None of his classmates care one way or the other. It's all good.

I have a good friend like this, he works remotely now after graduating and moving and he’s pretty lonely.

Won’t be true of everyone of course.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#160

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

sequoia wrote: post #41

This is interesting but I can't help but notice how intensely performative these kids are as well, at least how they're characterized in this article. They're wearing Carhartt (an unusual choice for a metropolis like NYC), reading Dostoyevski and gathering to "listen to the wind." I will say most teens are like this and I certainly was myself, but I hope they are careful not to cultivate their own "artisan" brand of…

Anyone who thinks reading Dostoyevski is an acomplishment must be borderline illiterate*. None of his works are a hard read. Dostoyevski is the acomplishment, not the reader. Almost all fiction is a passive medium, the "work" has already been done by the auhtor. Tens (hundreds?) of millions of copies have been sold, and his works are required reading in many high schools.

>I am glad to see "the kids" continuing to question & challenge

They are the children of (rich?) Brooklyn hipster parents at a Performance arts school[0]. Who exactly are they challenging? If anything, they are being congradulated and pushed along on the hipster path. There are Brooklyn hipsters who unironically use 1980's antenta phones. If anything this is a worn out trope.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_R._Murrow_High_School

*I don't mean to imply that you are illiterate, just that you haven't thought this through.

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